Arranged Marriages and Ice-Cream
by GryffindorChaser2018-2022
Summary: Marlene McKinnon is under an arranged marriage, and Sirius Black tries to comfort her with ice-cream. Blackinnon, though not much romance, thus Romance not considered as a major genre.


_**Arranged Marriage: Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon talk.. DONT READ THE THIS LINE BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT A SPOILER**_

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_**Marlene is in an arranged marriage with Regulus. (Woah nice spoiler there, me!)**_

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Sure, Marlene_ barely_ talked to him, and even if he could talk a girl into sleeping with him any day (_Merlin, he probably didn't even need to talk_), and that he didn't have the guts to say _Hello_ to her, it didn't mean that he couldn't ask if she was okay when he found the girl crying in an empty corridor at night, when he was about to sneak in to the kitchens (_James was in the Hospital Wing, Peter was off somewhere, and Remus was reading another book_).

"_Oi_! McKinnon!" He called out, and the blonde raised her head, and it was red and blotchy and tears were stinging out of her ocean-blue eyes.

Maybe he should have called her out nicer, in the condition that she was currently in. But he still kept his act up.

"Get _out_, Black! I don't_ want_ to talk!" Sirius kept insisting, and found out why she wouldn't speak to him.

"I don't want to bloody _talk_, Regulus!" Sirius raised his eyebrows, and sat beside her. Marlene shifted away, making sure he couldn't get too close.

"Just w_hy_ in Circe's name would you exactly talk to my brother?" Marlene realized her mistake, and looked more carefully at Sirius, with his warm, worried face, and his Gryffindor scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. If_ only_ she hadn't mistook him for Regulus, but the damage was done, and he needed an explanation.

"Oh.. Sorry, Sirius. Thought you were your brother." "_I've noticed_." He replied, a bit harshly.

The two were quiet for a while, and Marlene remembered that she was supposed to be answering Sirius' question.

"Umm.. Where were you going?" She asked, an idea coming to mind.

"To the kitchens, why?"

Marlene gave a small smile. "Let's go there, get some midnight snack ice-cream, and I'll tell you."

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They talked for a while, finding out different things about each other. Sirius found out that Marlene was allergic to almost every seafood, which _was_ ironic because her name meant _'Star of the Se_a', while she found out that he's only ever shagged a grand total of four girls (_none of them were Gryffindors_), despite everyone else thinking that he shagged almost every girl at Hogwarts.

Sirius could notice though that she was trying to delay her answering his earlier question, and that maybe he would just forget about it, but by 2 a.m. they were still talking and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep at all without knowing her answer.

So Sirius cut her off when she was explaining some story about her best friend, Lily Evans (_James would surely kill him if he knew that he had let this opportunity pass_).

"You still didn't answer my question, just wanted to remind you." Marlene tried to act like she didn't know what he was talking about, but both of them knew that he could see right through her. Sighing, she straightened up her back, mushing up her blueberry ice cream, and began to speak.

"_Well_, you know that my parents died a few years ago, yeah?" She seemed so calm saying this, but he knew better, that she probably wanted to destroy everything apart, huddle into a corner and cry endlessly. Sirius nodded.

"My brother and I had to move in with our aunt, and at first she was fair as a haughty pureblood maniac could be, but decent nonetheless; but I guess getting married to a death eater like Yaxley can change you." She scoffed, digging her spoon in for more ice cream.

"Of course, since I turned seventeen a couple of months ago.." Sirius gasped, clearly getting where the story was getting to. Marlene nodded.

"They looked for_ respectable_ suitors. Among them were Rabastan Lestrange, Avery, Nott, a few others, and.. Your _brother_, Regulus." She said, and she was tearing up again, which was very odd for him to see that the tough cookie had crumbled down into pieces.

"Every single one of them were horrible, but _Regulus_ was the nice-.. _most decent_ to me, so.." Sirius' eyes grew hard. Of course Regulus gets the girl, what, with his perfect grades and his prefect status and that bloody tattoo on his arm.

"You know, he told me that they were originally planning that you were to take Regulus' place." Sirius held his breath. He knew there probably would he some consequence of leaving 12 Grimmauld place, but did Merlin _really_ have to punish Marlene, of _all_ people, for what he did?

If he hadn't left.. He definitely would be miserable, but at least Marlene wouldn't need to suffer being there.

Sirius sighed. "Have you told anyone about the arranged marriage?" Marlene shook her head. "_Not even_ _Lily_."

Sirius looked back at his strawberry ice cream, seeing that it melted. Marlene didn't tell anyone but him. She had no one, but_ him._

Sirius looked at Marlene, and anyone could tell that she was at a miserable state. Surely anyone could have noticed how less energetic; or that she almost never raises her hand anymore during class; or that she's not as good in DADA anymore, seeing as Lily had beaten her in a duel for the first time in class; or that she basically starves herself, only eating a piece of toast and marmalade.

He was _never_ someone who comforted another; that was James, or Remus, and heck even Peter was better at comforting others, and that said something.

So all Sirius could do was stand up from his seat, and give Marlene a hug, no words spoken. That is, _until_ Marlene said something that made both of them smile...

"Despite _everything_ Regulus tried, which I have to admit isn't exactly that much, Kreacher _still_ hates me. Said I was _too much_ like you."

"And is that a bad thing?"

"I told Kreacher I was _thankful_ _for the __compliment_."

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_**Improved: 5/31/14**_


End file.
